As for a-hole fans, James, those guys you ran into at Fenway back in ‘01 were just EXACTLY the kind of jerk-offs I’m talking about. Maybe they were bandies (there actually WERE a few of them around that year), maybe they actually were M’s fans who were on vacation…but I have a hunch that I personally wouldn’t have minded seeing them get their asses kicked myself — since those are the kind of louts who ruin the game for everybody else.

BTW, congrats — your guys played a great season and earned that banner. Enjoy your offseason!

The story you mentioned was practically the first thing I read.

Possibly/probably apocryphal but that’s one I’ve heard.

Regarding fans, I don’t know how you can possible try to judge hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of people on the basis of encountering a few people in a perhaps unusual circumstance. To give you an idea of the problem of doing this, the single most obnoxious couple fans I’ve ever encountered at Fenway were not yankee fans or Mets fans or Braves or any other team. They were a couple of Mariners fans who sat behind me and my friends in July or August 2001. I’ve had yankee fans sitting next to me at a Sox vs. yankees game and never come near to a fight. These guys had 6 or 8 people wanting to go at it with them. They laughed derisively at any play that went against the Sox, shouted insults at the Sox players and were jackasses toward girls who went by with Sox gear on. They were so over the top smug about the Mariners that I almost–almost– felt good about Justice’s hit off Rhodes. I think I pictured those two assholes having the smiles wiped off their faces.

There are jerks in every bunch.

The whole Red Sox mystique was the years of not winning. It took a special kind of masochist (like me) to keep thinking that it was just a year or two away…

Now that they’re winners, they’re just attracting a different crowd, and that’s probably why they don’t seem special to me any more.

It’s also much harder for me to be a fan of any team outside the Northwest “just because.” It’s not like when players stayed with the same team for most of their careers (and as annoying as that can be to me as a player, I thank Curt Flood on behalf of the players and the game). I still follow the Dodgers as my NL team, but I rarely get to see them play and the personnel turns over so often, it’s hard to keep up.

My neighbor, who’s lived in Seattle for about twenty years, was born and raised in the Bronx. He remains a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool Yankee fan. He is, however, first and foremost a fan of the game…and as such, is none too fond of many of the obnoxious louts who show up at Safeco pretending to be on-board the “Yankee Nation” bandwagon as a reason to get drunk and act belligerent and stupid.

I really don’t have that much of an issue with TRUE Red Sox or Yankee fans — or even any other fans who show up to root for their team — as long as they do so in a civilized manner. The folks who piss me off are the ones who come in and try to TAKE OVER the park to the point where they’re intimidating/menacing the home fans who are merely trying to enjoy the game. That kind of mentality smacks of the hooliganism which often takes place at certain Europoean football (soccer) parks and elsewhere — and a lot of the time, it’s perpetrated by these bandies who claim to be “lifelong” fans of certain popular teams depite NOT being from that city or region, not having any family connections there, never even having BEEN to a game at that team’s home park, and not even being able to tell you from personal knowledge who some of the great players of their so-called “favorite” team are (i.e. Sox “fans” who don’t know who Pudge Fisk is, Yank “fans” who’ve never heard of Bucky Dent, etc.).

I realize not every fan is going to have the entire history of their team memorized (speaking from my own experience, there’s a lot of early Mariner history that I missed and had to dig up on my own — a little something to do with living 2300 miles away and the M’s not getting a hell of a lot of press at the time)…also, that teams which are/have become successful are bound to attract casual fans or bandies. That being said, MLB has done its job in “growing the game,” so to speak…however, someone who’s paid their money to simply try to enjoy a game should never feel threatened by the behavior of others.

This year, I was able to relax and enjoy the team and the games. As I watched the games a couple of thoughts kept going through my head….

1….I hope I don’t have to wait until I’m 80 before the M’s win a world series.
2….I’m glad the Sox have a manager with enough stones to value talent over veteraness.
3….Having money and brains at your disposal trumps having just money every time.
4….The playoffs are still a crap shoot, build your team for the regular season.
5….Power arms top finesse pitching.
6….Remember when the M’s used to grind out at bats like the Sox do and take pitches?
7….Double switches and pulling guys for late inning defense isn’t rocket science.

One last thing about Sox fans. Go to New England. Observe the number of people wearing Sox merchandise. If someone is wearing a cap, it’s a Sox hat. The people of New England support their team. The M’s would kill to have a fan base as loyal as the Red Sox. Sure, you think they’re coming out of the woodwork across the US but it’s always been that way in New England.

On the other hand, as a baseball fan, I’m happy for new fans to the game and new money for the game. Baseball is already a second tier sport in the US and in the ’90s was in danger of becoming a complete joke. It’s a lot easier to ignore a few boors and actually have the game still played at a high level than it would be to see baseball implode. In that regard, much as I hate it, I guess the policy of ignoring steroids worked.

There is also a large segment of our population that is so dispassionate and ignorant that they will latch onto whatever trend comes down the pipe, regardless of hour ridiculous or sublime it may be (see: Hilton, Paris; armband tattoo, tribal; Kinkade, Thomas).

The fact of the matter is that many of these people, in the past few years, have dumped out their Yankees gear and swapped it for shiny new Red Sox gear. They know very little about the team, they players, or the history, but in their dim little minds, that is overshadowed by their driving need to be associated with what is considered to be fashionable at the time.

Let’s face it, if a miracle happened and the M’s suddenly became the most successful franchise in baseball over an extended period, we would suddenly start seeing people in M’s gear everywhere, and not just in the Pacific Northwest. The “Mariner Nation” would extend to the other coast. And we would have to put up with them showing up at Safeco Field, being incredibly obnoxious, and having no idea who Lou Piniella is, albeit Alvin Davis or Omar Vizquel.

Congrats to the Boston Red Sox, and incredibly well-run organization that deserves the success.